Lecture 16 - Apoptosis Flashcards
Three types of cell death
- Necrosis (exploding)
- Programmed cell death (suicide)
- Autophagy (organelle cannibalism)
Necrosis is induced by
Insults to the cell that cannot be repaired:
Injury, infection, cancer, infarction
Steps of necrosis (4)
- Cells swell, organelle membranes break down and chromatin is digested
- Cells lyse and spill contents into surrounding area
- Hydrolytic enzymes from lysosomes damage other nearby cells
- Leads to inflammation and self perpetuating gangrene
Apoptosis is used
In the developing nervous system, developing foetus, tadpole frog development, quality control, t and b cells
In the developing nervous system, apoptosis is used
To reinforce correct neuron connections
In the developing foetus, apoptosis is used
To form individual digits (from webbing)
In the tadpole, apoptosis is used
To form legs - cells in the tail die, governed by thyroid hormone
Apoptosis is also used as a
Quality control - abnormal, non functional or misplaced cells are removed, balance
Apoptosis and the immune system
T and B cells are trained to apoptose foreign antigens
Apoptosis and balance
Surplus cells eliminated
Steps of apoptosis ‘falling leaves’ (silent) (8)
- Cells shrink
- Cytoskeleton collapses
- Golgi fragments
- NE disassembles
- Chromatin hyper condenses and is digested
- Blebbing of the membrane and apoptotic bodies
- Alteration of the cell membrane so it is recognised by macrophages
- Membrane becomes permeable to small molecules
How is apoptosis mediated?
Specific class of proteases - Cys residue in active site, cleave at Asp
Caspases (C-Asp-ases)
Proteases in apoptosis
Procaspases (inactive caspases) are activated by
Cleavage
Procaspase cleavage sites are
Asp residues themselves
When the Procaspase is cleaved
The cleaved units reassociate to form a heterotetrameric Caspase with large and small subunits
Procaspases are
Hetero dimers
Caspases are
Hetero tetramers
Procaspase cleavage is mediated by
Initiator caspases (Upstream)
The caspase cascade
Amplifies the initial signal
The initiator caspase
Starts the cascade
The executioner caspases
Amplify the signal
What do caspases cleave? (at asp)
- Nuclear lamin
2. Cytosolic protein
Caspase activity is highly regulated because
Unregulated apoptosis could have catastrophic effects for the organism
The caspase cascade is
Irreversible
Two ways of activating apoptosis
- Extrinsic cascade
2. Intrinsic cascade
The Extrinisic cascade contains certain extracellular signalling proteins
TNF (death signal), Fas (death receptor)
The death domain
Transmembrane domain where TNF binds to Fas to signal apoptosis
Binding of TNF to Fas causes
Clustering of death domains (multimers) in the PM
Activates apoptosis
Caspases associate with the death domain to
Activate the caspase cascade
Clustering of the death domains is known as
Lipid raft fusion
The death domains are activated by
Conformational change
The death domain recruits the
DISC
Death inducing signalling complex
Proteins in the DISC
FADD, TRADD, Caspase 8/10
Example of the Extrinsic cascade (4)
Viral infection
1. viral proteins are cleaved and displayed on the surface of cells
- T killer cells recognise foreign peptide on Fas receptor
- Fas ligand on T killer cell binds to the Fas receptor
- Activates the death domain and caspase cascade
The Intrinsic Pathway involves
Mitochondria
The intrinsic pathway is triggered by
Injury (DNA damage, hypoxia)
Initial activators of the intrinsic pathway
Are not known
Activation of the apoptotic pathway leads to activation of
Bcl proteins